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Planning a Wedding in a LDR

Hive, planning a wedding is a lot of work. (Big shocker to NO ONE.) I’m not sure if being in an LDR makes things easier or harder. Honestly, in my case it might make things easier because I just do all the planning and purchasing, and update Mr. BC after the fact. HA!

I’m not sure if I have covered this yet (though you could probably guess) but I am a planner! I work as an Executive Assistant and my work life revolves around planning. I also plan the crap out of vacations (*cough*andlife*cough*) So much so, that Mr. BC affectionately(??) calls me “Miss BC Griswold”. Shout out to Vacation / Chevy Chase! I may or may not have planned every single minute on a four day trip to Walt Disney World, complete with a step-by-step “ride guide” that accounted for every second of our day(s). I am serious; I knew what ride we were starting on, what ride we were going on 4th, 6th and last, and when we were breaking for meals. I be crazy!

So, I take the idea of wedding planning seriously. (Um, who doesn’t??) I want to plan the best effing wedding our guests have ever been to! Even though we’re doing a Destination Wedding with a pretty complete Wedding Package, I’m still doing quite a lot. You can see from my blog that I am DIY’ing a lot, and also bringing a lot of stuff with us.

With Mr. BC being far away, he unfortunately doesn’t get that much input.

I am really trying not to take this wedding and run away with it. (Can you elope with your own wedding?!?) I want Mr. BC’s input, and I want him to LIKE what I’m doing. (Hello, it’s his wedding too!) So here’s how we do it… this is my super awesome way of planning a destination wedding, while in a long distance relationship: I use a lot of FaceTime! Woo, I bet you never could have guessed that one, huh!

Just another “date” on the ole iPad / Personal Photo

OMG, I love this pic. Mr. BC looks so handsome. And there’s Bellatrix on the left!

I do all my research and crafting during the day / early evening and then once we finally connect via FaceTime (usually around 9 – 9:30 PM my time) I download everything I’ve been working on to him. Poor Mc. BC does not get much talk time in when we FaceTime. (Although, who are we kidding… this is how our life was even before the wedding planning began. I am a Chatty Cathy, and he is awesome, and lets me prattle on and on… and on. LOVE HIM!)

I also let him view all of my DIY templates in advance of crafting via Google Drive. I uploaded everything to a drive and then make him look at it all. We had a FaceTime session where we’d both pull up the documents and view them at the same time. I’d let him ask questions or offer suggestions. The suck part about doing this way was that Google Drive did NOT have the font I had used. So nothing looked quite right to my sweetheart.

But, poor guy, I am not really letting him have any input into the crafts. (Type A, much?). While we were on FaceTime, he was looking at the wedding program template and suggested adding something else to the bottom of the program. I will admit that they look a little unimpressive on the template (and his idea was cute/personalized), but I have a vision here! He was only seeing 1/2 of the program. So I promptly shot him down, and told him that if he wanted to make changes he could do it himself. (Bridezilla alert!!) BUT, I THINK he is happy with the 1/2 way result.

His first real viewing of completed crafts / projects is usually by photos that I sent him via text message. He also sees the completed projects and story via this blog. He subscribes to my blog, and reads it daily! Woot! Score points for the groom!

Unfortunately, another area that he gets almost no input on is what I buy for the wedding. I do a ton of research, and then buy what I like / goes with the theme. Then I send him links, take pictures, and show him via FaceTime. I think this works for us. He prefers for me to just get it done. He trusts my taste and he is “go with the flow” enough to not really care / mind me doing this on my own. And I think our tastes are similar enough that he likes everything I am doing. I will say that he DID GET to pick out his own wedding band, (Am I awesome, or what. I’m a keeper!) but sadly he has yet to see the ring in person. How crappy is that? 😦

While it’s hard to get his help because he’s so far away, there are few things he’s in charge of. I let him pick the wedding color: red (I added white and black to the scheme) and the floral arrangements for the reception. I am also going to have him help me put the last of the petals for the programs together when he is home in August. And I tasked him with buying the Bose speaker for our reception, and he is going to create all of the play lists for the cocktail hour, dinner and reception music.

So that’s it… wedding planning in a LDR. What do you think, Hive? How do you think I’m doing? Is there any awesome technology I should know about that can help us? Am I being too controlling and type A to my groom?